Found your Substack through your CT interview—heartened by the thoughtfulness and generosity of your approach to difficult topics. Excited to follow along here : )
I'm a little more comfortable with patriotism than this suggests--though I would also think of patriotism as loyalty to a country or a people (my fellow countrymen and countrywomen) rather than to the state. Many years ago I wrote something on this that I still think has held up fairly well (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/02/christians-as-patriots). But it is also hard to beat the ten pages on patriotism in C. S. Lewis's opening chapter of The Four Loves, where he discusses loves for the "sub-human."
I like your essay quite a bit, and I also support a kind of qualified loyalty to a country or a people. Indeed, one of the most important questions of our current moment is what holds "us" together as a "we." My concern is tied more closely to particular oaths and words and what they signify or overpromise. But I agree that patriotism as a broader concept is more nuanced.
Thanks, John--very glad that you liked the essay (and took the time to read it). I agree that your question about what holds "us" together at present is an important one. Sometimes it feels as though the answer is "not much," although I think that is unduly pessimistic. I'm hoping to read Yuval Levin's new book, which I take it presents one answer to that question (an answer with which--based purely on the blurbs--I expect to sympathize, but might also want to supplement).
At any rate: again, very kind of you to take the time to read that piece.
John, thank you for sharing that. Guess I'll have to read the book. It strikes me that Yuval's emphasis on federalism (I'm relying on your summary) and yours on civil rights and liberties such as free expression are certainly not mutually exclusive, and could well be complementary. Though I wonder whether both are not a bit too abstract to be the "glue" holding us together without some underlying shared cultural experience or commitment to a shared peoplehood.
I also read your follow-up post on the Vitagliano petition. And then did a (very) quick Google search to see what happened. If my short internet research is reliable, the Court declined to hear the case. But perhaps because Westchester County repealed the offending law, making the case moot? Though that would leave the Hill precedent on the books.
Interestingly enough, I have heard similar arguments about oaths to the constitution made by many social conservatives, as many will argue that as oaths to the constitution are also oaths to abortion (Roe vs. Wade), contraception (Griswold) and same-sex "marriage" (Obergefell). I disagree with that reading, as none of those issues are mentioned in the constitution (& oaths to the constitution are not oaths to the judicial activism), though I understand what you are saying and what you mean. An interesting and thought-provoking article.
My personal view is that Christians should be patriotic, but that a healthy Christian patriotism requires a theory of the state and sovereignty significantly different from ours today (but normal in the pre-modern world). Ultimately "patriotism" is loyalty to "patria," and signifies a familial notion of nationhood (wherein the sovereign is the pater patriae). However, modern notions of nationhood have diminished this, especially now when "nations" are considered to be legal entities bound up in Enlightenment republicanism, rather than extended families proceeding from a sovereign (whose role was very much viewed as akin to that of Christian fatherhood). I could elaborate, but it would take a bit of time, though Jean Bodin explains it well in the first book of his "Six Books of the Commonwealth"
Found your Substack through your CT interview—heartened by the thoughtfulness and generosity of your approach to difficult topics. Excited to follow along here : )
Thank you!
I'm a little more comfortable with patriotism than this suggests--though I would also think of patriotism as loyalty to a country or a people (my fellow countrymen and countrywomen) rather than to the state. Many years ago I wrote something on this that I still think has held up fairly well (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/02/christians-as-patriots). But it is also hard to beat the ten pages on patriotism in C. S. Lewis's opening chapter of The Four Loves, where he discusses loves for the "sub-human."
I like your essay quite a bit, and I also support a kind of qualified loyalty to a country or a people. Indeed, one of the most important questions of our current moment is what holds "us" together as a "we." My concern is tied more closely to particular oaths and words and what they signify or overpromise. But I agree that patriotism as a broader concept is more nuanced.
Thanks, John--very glad that you liked the essay (and took the time to read it). I agree that your question about what holds "us" together at present is an important one. Sometimes it feels as though the answer is "not much," although I think that is unduly pessimistic. I'm hoping to read Yuval Levin's new book, which I take it presents one answer to that question (an answer with which--based purely on the blurbs--I expect to sympathize, but might also want to supplement).
At any rate: again, very kind of you to take the time to read that piece.
Yuval and I had an online exchange on some of the material in his new book: https://johninazu.substack.com/p/can-we-find-unity-with-strangers?
John, thank you for sharing that. Guess I'll have to read the book. It strikes me that Yuval's emphasis on federalism (I'm relying on your summary) and yours on civil rights and liberties such as free expression are certainly not mutually exclusive, and could well be complementary. Though I wonder whether both are not a bit too abstract to be the "glue" holding us together without some underlying shared cultural experience or commitment to a shared peoplehood.
I also read your follow-up post on the Vitagliano petition. And then did a (very) quick Google search to see what happened. If my short internet research is reliable, the Court declined to hear the case. But perhaps because Westchester County repealed the offending law, making the case moot? Though that would leave the Hill precedent on the books.
Hill is mostly dead after McCullen v. Coakley but still needs to be formally overruled.
Thanks, John, for this sobering and timely reminder of our need to remain vigilant and aware of situations that are not what they seem to be.
Interestingly enough, I have heard similar arguments about oaths to the constitution made by many social conservatives, as many will argue that as oaths to the constitution are also oaths to abortion (Roe vs. Wade), contraception (Griswold) and same-sex "marriage" (Obergefell). I disagree with that reading, as none of those issues are mentioned in the constitution (& oaths to the constitution are not oaths to the judicial activism), though I understand what you are saying and what you mean. An interesting and thought-provoking article.
My personal view is that Christians should be patriotic, but that a healthy Christian patriotism requires a theory of the state and sovereignty significantly different from ours today (but normal in the pre-modern world). Ultimately "patriotism" is loyalty to "patria," and signifies a familial notion of nationhood (wherein the sovereign is the pater patriae). However, modern notions of nationhood have diminished this, especially now when "nations" are considered to be legal entities bound up in Enlightenment republicanism, rather than extended families proceeding from a sovereign (whose role was very much viewed as akin to that of Christian fatherhood). I could elaborate, but it would take a bit of time, though Jean Bodin explains it well in the first book of his "Six Books of the Commonwealth"